Cradling her one-year-old daughter in a house in southern Myanmar, 22-year-old Nu Nu Aye recalled the reasons her husband gave for beating her. She hadn’t looked after his rooster. In a meeting brokered by a village elder, he said he would beat her when “necessary”. “His abuse got worse after that,” she said. Finally, he tried to strangle her while she was sleeping. In Myanmar, where the US-funded Demographic and Health Survey suggested at least one-fifth of women are abused by a partner – figure activists say is likely an underestimate because many cases are not reported there is no specific law against domestic violence.
Women such as Nu Nu Aye, whose account Reuters could not independently verify, usually rely on intervention by local leaders to arrange settlements with partners whose abuse is largely regarded as a private affair. Activists hope the first National Prevention and Protection of Violence Against Women law, which the government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been working on, will give women more protection from violence, including domestic abuse.
